Thursday, October 22, 2015

About that Minnesota lady who got pulled over for drinking coffee

So we had a pretty good cuss-n-discuss over the
story about a St. Paul woman who says a cop pulled her over for drinking coffee
and gave her a ticket when the incident was brought up during our morning news
meeting. There was probably a bit more cussing than discussing, frankly.

We didn’t quite have all the facts at our
fingertips in that initial meeting, and if you’ve only seen the headlines,
chances are you may be feeling a little heated about it yourself. I mean, that
sort of thing takes “drinking and driving” enforcement to a whole different
level.

If you missed it, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a nice write-up here.
Per the report, the joe-sipping driver, 36-year-old Lindsay Krieger, says she
was pulled over on eastbound Interstate 94 during the Wednesday morning rush
hour by a state trooper whom she says gave her a dressing down on the dangers
of drinking anything while driving.

“She kept asking, ‘Why did I pull you over?’ ”
Krieger told the newspaper. “And I really, honestly had no idea. ‘It’s the
coffee. Drinking coffee and driving is against the law.’ I was not doing
anything wrong.”

When reached for comment, a spokeswoman for the
state patrol says the trooper stopped Krieger for not wearing a seat belt, not
for drinking coffee. Patrol spokeswoman Lt. Tiffani Schweigart did say that the
trooper apparently told Krieger that she often sees spilled coffee and other
similar situations at crash sites where “drivers are trying to do too many
things at once.”

The article notes that Minnesota hasn’t got any
laws on the books explicitly prohibiting drivers from drinking coffee while
behind the wheel, but such an act could be considered inattentive driving, a
charge more commonly leveled at drivers using cell phones. Krieger was not
ticketed for inattentive driving; only for the seat belt violation. She
disputes that charge as well.

Amazingly, Krieger claims this isn’t the first
time she’s incurred the wrath of Minnesota justice for ingesting whilst
driving. The paper claims she acknowledged having been busted in her early 20s
for “eating Cheerios out of a cup while waiting in line to make a turn.”

Truckers who’ve had dealings with Minnesota State
Patrol in the past probably won’t be as willing to give the cop the benefit of
the doubt here. After all, this is the same agency that had to be sued by OOIDA
to quit harassing drivers with their de facto fatigue regulations in 2009. Cops
would ask questions of truckers about their neck size, urination habits, and
whether or not they had any Playboy magazines in the cab, in order to determine
whether the driver was fatigued.

What’s the craziest reason you’ve ever been pulled
over for? Tell us in the comments.

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